THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE TRANSITION; Bush Team Revising Plans for Granting Self-Rule to Iraqis

The Bush administration, seeking to overcome new resistance on the political and security fronts in Iraq, is revising its proposed process for handing over power to an interim Iraqi government by June 30, administration officials said Monday.

Officials held a round of urgent meetings in Washington and Baghdad in the wake of the rejection on Sunday by a powerful Shiite religious leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, of the administration's complex plans to hold caucuses around the country to select an interim legislature and executive in a newly self-governing Iraq. Officials say they are responding to the cleric's objections with a new plan that will open the caucuses to more people and make their inner workings more transparent.

Administration officials also expressed concern about a separate part of Ayatollah Sistani's statement on Sunday that demanded that any agreement for American-led forces to remain in Iraq be approved by directly elected representatives.

Those twin setbacks raise questions about who would have to reach an agreement with the United States that would allow more than 100,000 American troops to remain in the country after power is handed over to the Iraqis this summer.

The administration has not yet begun negotiating such an agreement with its handpicked Iraqi authorities. Such negotiations -- in which the American military is expected to ask for wide latitude in its counterinsurgency efforts -- could be much tougher if they have to be carried out with Iraqis who are directly elected.

Administration officials acknowledged Monday evening that the remarks opposing the caucus plan from Ayatollah Sistani were a clear rebuff that would not be easy to overcome. The ayatollah, in a decree issued Sunday, said members of the interim legislature must be chosen through direct elections. Administration officials had been trying to convince him that such elections were impractical, but did not succeed.

''We're pushing ahead with this process and trying to deal with Ayatollah's concerns,'' said a top administration official. ''We're looking at the same process we have, but trying to make it as open, inclusive and democratic as possible.''

Under an agreement reached between the American-led occupation and the Iraqi Governing Council, a body of Iraqis handpicked by the occupation authorities, an elaborate set of caucuses were mapped out in each of Iraq's 18 provinces, which are known as governorates.

Each caucus was to have an organizing committee chosen by members of the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad and by others in each of the governorates. The system was so elaborate and complex that some American occupation officials said it was difficult even for them to figure out.

Now that Ayatollah Sistani has rejected the system as not democratic enough, administration officials said they were intensifying efforts in all of Iraq's governorates and in cities and towns to hold local meetings to select delegates to the caucuses.

The new hope in Washington, the officials said, was in effect to make the caucus system look more democratic without changing it in a fundamental way.

The administration continues to assert that elections cannot be held in time for the deadline of June 30, the target date for handing sovereignty over to a new Iraqi interim government. There are no census rolls, voter registration records or other means to certify a democratic vote, they say.

In addition, the security situation, especially in the Sunni Muslim heartland in the center of Iraq, is not yet strong enough for an election to be held, American officials say.

There were signs on Monday that the administration was taken aback by the ayatollah's comments on Sunday. For weeks, administration officials had been saying the American occupation leader, L. Paul Bremer III, would be able to persuade the ayatollah to change his mind.

Some officials noted that their negotiations with Ayatollah Sistani have been hampered because the ayatollah will not talk directly with Mr. Bremer, and so the Americans have had to use multiple emissaries to communicate with him.

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The ayatollah is a revered religious figure among Shiite Muslims, who make up more than 60 percent of Iraq's population. He is also regarded as a political moderate, but his refusal to meet with Mr. Bremer or any other American occupation figures was testimony to his not wanting to recognize the legitimacy of the American occupation.

A top administration official said recently that various emissaries had conveyed messages to and from Mr. Bremer and Ayatollah Sistani, but that probably only about two-thirds of the messages got through at any one time. Signals were confusing and contradictory, at least in American eyes.

When Ayatollah Sistani suggested that perhaps a neutral authority could certify that the elections were impractical, as American authorities had insisted, the administration seized on the idea that Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations could fill the bill.

Last week, Mr. Annan passed a message to a group of Iraqi leaders at the United Nations. The message was addressed to Adnan Pachachi, the current chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council and a former Iraqi foreign minister who has been leading the negotiations with the ayatollah.

According to people familiar with the letter, Mr. Annan said in it that ''while it might not be possible to have elections in the time available, nevertheless it was essential to have a process that was fully inclusive and transparent.''

The Annan letter was transmitted to Ayatollah Sistani by Mr. Pachachi, inspiring hope in the administration that it would prove persuasive, administration officials said. The ayatollah's rebuff was thus seen in Washington as a major jolt that forced a rethinking of American plans.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, was among a small number of lawmakers involved in intelligence briefings on Monday, and he said Monday evening that he did not see how the administration had a choice in the matter.

''Sistani probably isn't going to change his mind, so we're going to have to somehow change our caucus approach or modify it,'' Senator Rockefeller said. ''I think that's going to be very hard to pull off by June 30.''

Mr. Rockefeller also urged the administration to consider postponing the target date for transferring power to Iraqis, but administration officials said that was not under review.

The negotiations with the ayatollah and the plans for expanding the caucus process were proceeding even as an impasse remained on another aspect of the occupation.

In that impasse, the American occupation continues to try to persuade Kurdish leaders to back off their insistence on one unified Kurdish state comprising three of the governorates and possibly additional territory, including some oil fields.

Kurds, equally adamantly, are demanding that the United States back off its own position. Some Kurdish leaders are threatening to pull Kurdish members off the Iraqi Governing Council, an American official said. Such a move would be embarrassing to the United States, which chose the council members last summer.

Many in the administration expect an accommodation to be made with the Kurds. Indeed, they say that so many Iraqis expect such an accommodation that the likelihood that the United States would bow to Kurdish demands is probably what emboldened Ayatollah Sistani to take his hard line over the weekend.

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A version of this article appears in print on January 13, 2004, on Page A00014 of the National edition with the headline: THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE TRANSITION; Bush Team Revising Plans for Granting Self-Rule to Iraqis. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe